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There has been a vast and important change of mind among the
electorate, regarding the issue of taxes.

On 13 July 2012, McClatchy Newspapers headlined “Poll: Majority Want Tax Cuts for All, Even the
Wealthy,” and reported that, “A majority of Americans
[who are registered to vote] want the Bush tax cuts extended for
everyone, despite a strong push by President Barack Obama to
eliminate them on [only] higher incomes, according to a new
McClatchy-Marist poll.

"The poll found 52 percent of registered voters saying they want
all of the tax cuts extended, including the tax cuts for incomes
above $250,000, while 43 percent want the cuts extended just for
incomes below that threshhold.”

Contrast that with now: On 11 December 2012, the same people who
took that poll, the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion,
headlined “Slim Majority Thinks Debt Deal Will Be
Reached,” and reported that whereas 57% of registered
voters favor expiration of the Bush tax cuts on incomes above
$250,000 like Obama proposes, only 24% favor expiration of the
Bush tax cuts for everyone, and 74% are opposed to that.

So, now, registered voters do want the Bush tax cuts to
expire only for incomes above $250,000. Unlike
back in July, the electorate now strongly favor Obama’s position,
whereas they formerly favored the Republican position, by a
moderate margin.

Registered voters constitute a far more conservative group than
all adult Americans, and so there has always been strong support
by non-voters for extending the Bush tax cuts on
only incomes below $250,000.

Thus, for example, on 2 December 2010, CBS News
headlined “CBS News Poll: Most Oppose GOP Tax
Plan,” and reported that in a sample of “adults
nationwide” instead of just registered voters,
53% wanted the Bush tax cuts to “continue for households <
$250K” and 26% wanted them to “continue for all” and this meant
that overwhelmingly the Republican position was unpopular
amongst all adults.

CBS repeated this polling question for years, and the results
have always been similar. So, until recently,
there has been, on this matter, a huge difference between what
all voting-age citizens want and what all registered voters want
– registered voters tend to be vastly more conservative than the
U.S. population as-a-whole.

Of course, for any politician seeking election or re-election,
all that matters are the smaller group of registered voters. In
fact, an evensmaller group is
all that actually matters to
politicians: likely voters. And this sub-group
are evenmore conservative than
are the broader sub-group of registered voters.

So, although eligible voters have always been overwhelmingly
supportive of the President’s position on this, the people who
actually register to vote were not, until just recently – but
they are now.